


something extraordinary

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: The Code (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Future, Minor Adam Turnbull/Original Female Character(s), Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29386527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Abe and Harper attend Adam Turnbull's engagement party. Harper comes to a realization or two.
Relationships: John "Abe" Abraham & Harper Li, John "Abe" Abraham/Harper Li
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	something extraordinary

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from an Idina Menzel song, "Extraordinary," because I've been listening to her songs on repeat the past few days. I hope you enjoy! :)

“Is there a reason you’re hiding?”

Harper nearly jumped out of her skin at the question, asked of her suddenly, after nearly fifteen minutes had passed in silence. Her heart was still pounding in her chest as she spun on her heel to glare at the smirking man behind her, who had somehow managed to sneak up on her despite her usual unusually acute awareness of her surroundings. “ _Jeez_ , Abraham,” she muttered, shaking her head and drawing in a deep breath as she waited for her heartbeat to slow, “a little _warning_ would be nice.”

“I said your name three times,” he informed her, taking away her empty glass of champagne and handing her another. “You just kept staring off into space. Honestly, I was beginning to wonder if you’d managed to fall asleep standing up. And with your eyes open.” He studied her curiously as she took a healthy sip of champagne. “You alright there, Harper?”

“I’m fine.” She sighed deeply at his unconvinced frown. “I… my mother called me yesterday. She wanted to _chat_.” She rolled her eyes in exasperation, taking another sip of champagne and politely ignoring the chuckle Abe managed to disguise as a cough at the very last moment. _“Chat_ is the word my mother uses when she’s getting ready to voice her... well, let’s just say her _less than positive_ opinions in regard to my personal life. Apparently, she’s got it in her head that I’m not allowed to be offended by the _horrible_ things she says, so long as they’re brought up in casual conversation.”

”Well, you’ve got to admit, it’s an interesting tactic. Maybe not a completely _effective_ one, but... interesting nonetheless.” 

Harper laughed weakly, lifting her glass to her lips. “I guess it is.” 

“ _All_ your life choices, huh?” 

She nodded miserably. “Every single last one of them.” 

“You’re thirty years old.” 

She chuckled humorlessly. “ _Believe me_ , John, I know.” 

His forehead wrinkled slightly at his rarely used first name, but he didn’t otherwise react, instead remarking drily, “Three decades of supposed mistakes? That was probably a lengthy conversation.”

”It was.” Harper finished off the rest of her champagne in a single gulp, shrugging when Abe’s eyes widened fractionally and his gaze grew concerned. “My mother and I, we haven’t been on good terms for a while. I don’t even know if we ever really _were_ , at least completely, but...” She trailed off with a helpless shrug. “Me joining the Corps only made things worse, and then when Bard and I broke off our engagement _because_ of the Corps, she was _furious._ I mean, Bard is the son-in-law she’s always wanted. I’m pretty sure she loves him more than she loves me...”

”I’m sure that’s not true,” Abe remarked mildly, though he didn’t sound nearly as convincing as he likely meant to. 

Harped shrugged carelessly. “Wouldn’t really care if it was, honestly. At this point, I’ve just sort of accepted it.” She exhaled deeply. “That’s why Mother called in the first place, actually. She wanted me to know Bard’s seeing somebody new.” 

“Oh.” Abe cleared his throat, glancing away with a mild grimace. “And does that bother you?” 

“ _No_ ,” Harper said, honestly and emphatically. “It doesn’t. But it bothers my mother, and for whatever reason, she has decided that her problems should be my problems. It irks her that I remain unirked.” 

Abe snorted into his drink. “I’m relatively certain that’s not a real word.” 

Harper shrugged. “I am absolutely _positive_ I do not care.” 

At that, he outright laughed, and Harper found it impossible to bite back a smile of her own. “Fair enough. So, your mom called to talk about your ex-fiancé’s personal life,” he led, nodding for her to continue. “And then what?” 

“Well, she said she _felt I had a right to know_.” Harper rolled her eyes again. “She said that to make it seem like she wanted me to find out _first_ , from her and not someone else, as though Bard and I aren’t friends on Facebook _and friends in real life_ , and he didn’t tell me about Cress before he ever even asked her out.”

“Cress?” Abe repeated skeptically. 

“Cressida,” Harper supplied distractedly.

He groaned, shaking his head in exasperation. “ _Cressida?_ Really? I mean, _seriously_ , where do people come up with these names?” 

Harper smiled, amused. “They’re childhood friends. Their parents are both big fans of Shakespeare.” 

“That does not make it acceptable, but alright.” Abe shook his head. “So, your mom’s upset you’re not upset?” 

“Essentially.” Harper sighed again. “It doesn’t even matter, really. She only brought up Bard so she could point out how my relationship with him is _another_ thing I’ve screwed up. She enjoys having a wide range of examples when it comes to my apparent failures.”

“Well,” Abe snagged another glass of champagne from a passing waiter, handing it over with a wry grin, “there are plenty of people in this world who’d love to be _failing_ as badly as you are, Captain.”

“I know,” Harper muttered, pressing a hand to her forehead as she took a sip of her beverage. A headache had been coming on since she’d hung up with her mother the previous day, and though alcohol likely was the exact opposite of what she needed right then, it had a pleasant numbing effect. She figured that would be lost rather quickly in the morning, though. “I _know_ I’m doing fine. I’m happy with my life. I’m doing a lot of _good,_ more good than I’d be doing as a litigator, and yet…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Why is it that I always let her get under my skin?”

“Because she’s your mother,” Abe answered promptly, “and we are genetically predisposed to care what our parents think of us, even when we’d rather not be.”

“Maybe.” Harper exhaled deeply, then nodded to the glass of champagne. “Thanks for this, by the way.”

“No problem.” Abe buried his hands in his pockets, glancing around curiously. “Turns out the Turnbulls know how to throw one _hell_ of a party, huh?”

“Their only child _did_ just get engaged,” Harper pointed out, following her co-counsel’s gaze. “Speaking of Adam and Adriana, where _are_ they?”

Abe chuckled under his breath. “Turnbull and Cardoza snuck out the back half an hour ago. Impressive, considering how many Marines are currently in this room.”

“Mm. Most of us are drunk, though,” Harper pointed out, amused.

“I suppose that’s true,” Abe acquiesced with a wry grin of his own.

“They seem happy, though,” Harper remarked idly. “Adam and Adriana, I mean. Don’t they?”

Abe eyed her strangely. “Well, they _are_ getting married, Harper. People tend not to marry people who make them miserable. Not in this part of the world, at least.”

“Yes, we’re very fortunate,” Harper remarked dryly. “We can build our own relationships and destroy them, too.” She waved a hand in the air when Abe’s gaze grew concerned. “Ignore me, Abraham. For whatever reason, I’m in rare form today.”

“I say blame it on your mother,” he offered helpfully, masking his worry with a playful grin.

Harper laughed, a genuine smile on her face. “To be fair, it’s probably at least ninety percent her fault.” The smile slipped, and she glanced back down at her half-full glass of champagne. “Maybe the concern’s valid in this case.”

“In the case of Turnbull and Cardoza?” Abe asked, frowning in confusion when she nodded silently. “Why?”

“Well, they’ve only known each other six months,” she pointed out logically. “And they got engaged after four.”

“I’m aware of both those things, Harper. I _also_ work in the same office as them.”

“Technically, you only work in the same office as _her,_ ” Harper pointed out quietly, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth. “Adam doesn’t officially work with us yet.”

He shrugged carelessly. “Only a matter of time.” His amused grin slipped away when he caught sight of the genuine concern still present in her gaze. “Okay, so they’ve only known each other six months and they’ve been engaged for two. Why do you think that’s cause for panic?”

Harper hesitated. “I just... do you really think six months is long enough?”

Abe appeared genuinely confused. “Long enough for _what,_ exactly?”

“To know if you want forever.”

He didn’t even hesitate. “Absolutely.”

“Absolutely?” Harper repeated, raising a single brow. “You’re that sure of it?”

“I am,” Abe nodded confidently. “Sometimes, you meet somebody and you just… know.”

It was probably just the alcohol, but Harper could have sworn his eyes lingered on hers just a second too long for that to be just some casual remark.

Harper mentally shook her head. No, it was _definitely_ just the alcohol. The alcohol and her own wishful thinking, that was.

She grinned up at him. “Look at you, Mr. Hopeless Romantic.”

“Okay,” Abe grumbled, though his own smile was far too obvious for his joking annoyance to be even slightly believable. “Look, I’m not saying it’s perfect. The divorce rate’s around twenty-eight percent in the U.S. these days.”

“You’re not saying it’s perfect, _but..._ “ Harper led, raising a challenging brow as she waited for him to share the rest of what he had to say.

Abe shrugged, flashing an amusingly sheepish grin as he reached up to rub a hand down the back of his neck. “If it wasn’t good for some people, at least some of the time, then the staying-married rate wouldn’t be in the seventies, now would it?”

She thought on that for a moment, then nodded in thoughtful agreement. “That’s a fair point.”

He grinned behind the rim of his glass. “I have been known to make them, occasionally.”

“Very occasionally,” Harper volleyed back playfully, ridiculously delighted when his grin only widened. “So...” She cleared her throat delicately, glancing up at him with a hesitant smile. “You’d want to get married?”

“Yes.” Again, no hesitation. “I mean,” he cleared his own throat, “if I found the right person.”

Again, his eyes seemed to linger on her a little longer than usual. Again, she convinced herself it was only the alcohol in her system, making her see things that weren’t there. She felt herself flush under his gaze, and glanced away in an attempt to hide it.

“What about you?” he asked a moment later. “Would you want to do all this,” he gestured to the room around them, “all over again?”

She followed his gaze, then nodded decisively. “Yeah,” She said, eyes finding his as she flashed a warm smile. “With the right person, I absolutely would.”

He smiled at her for a moment longer, then glanced away. “So. Do you want to keep hiding out in this corner, all by yourself, for the rest of this evening, or do you want to go over there,” he nodded toward the table he’d vacated several minutes earlier, which held the Ferrys, Maya, and Maya’s dark-haired date, “and socialize with your friends?”

She scrunched her nose in playful consideration, then heaved an amused sigh before grinning up at him once more. “I think I may be able to stomach you guys for another hour or two, at least.”

“That’s high praise,” Abe chuckled wryly, raising his brows. “Are you sure about that?”

“I’m sure,” Harper nodded seriously, falling into step beside him as they approached the table. “I’ve had a drink or two, though, and these are very high heels, so… don’t let me break anything, please.”

“Are you talking about _yourself,_ or one of the very expensive-looking vases Turnbull’s future mother-in-law decided would make perfect centerpieces?” Abe questioned, amused.

Harper squinted, considering the question. “Both,” she decided finally.

Abe laughed quietly. “Don’t worry, Harper Li,” he said, smiling over at her. “I’d never let you trip and fall.”

Even as inebriated as she was in that moment, Harper didn’t even have to think about what he’d said. “Yeah,” she said, biting back a grin as she gingerly took his proffered arm, “I know you wouldn’t.”


End file.
